Just Another Rite of Passage
by Roses-N-Runways
Summary: Kyle gets hungry, and no one's around to fix him a snack. That's ok, he can figure it out himself.


NOTE: I wrote this a loooong time ago, like after the first couple episodes. So pleasedon't be too hard on me!! Also, remember, at that time, Kyle's mentality was that of a young child. So that's kind of how he acts in this story.

"Just Another Rite of Passage"

_We all do something like this as an infant or child. But Kyle lived his childhood within a few days, while being a physical teenager. So he is going to do this certain thing NOW, instead of as a toddler. _

Kyle wandered into the Trager's living room, that now-familiar empty feeling gnawing at his stomache. What did that mean? He tried to remember. Oh, yes, he had learned that the problem was hunger and if he filled his stomach with something, it wouldn't hurt. He looked around for something to put in his mouth.

There were brightly-colored, little round things in a Ziploc bag on the floor near Josh's backpack. They reminded Kyle of something that happened a couple days ago, when Nicole had taken him to the mall to buy some clothes. He was very distracted by all the new sights, sounds, and people all over, and Nicole could barely keep him walking in the direction she wanted him to go to to get him to the right store.

He had been particularly fascinated with something he'd found in the center of the mall- a grouping of large machines that held brightly colored balls. Kyle wanted to know what they were.

He went over to him and tried to stick his arm up into the dispenser. When that didn't work, he just stared at them, his nose against the plexiglass. People stared and some of them were giving Nicole sympathetic looks.

Nicole hurried over to the gumball machines. She quietly explained, as she took his arm and led him away, that the bright colored round things were called gumballs, and no, he couldn't have one, because of something to do with choking that Kyle didn't really understand.

But, Kyle did understand that gumballs were something you could eat. So he took one of the little round things out of the bag and put it in his mouth. He bit down. "Ow!!" he moaned, rubbing his cheek. Maybe these things were like suckers- you couldn't really just chew on them. So he started sucking on the candy. But it wasn't seeming to get any smaller. Kyle got impatient and just swallowed it. He was really hungry, after all. After the "incident" of him eating out of the fridge a few nights ago, they told him that when he was hungry, he needed to come ask one of them to help him fix a snack. He knew he had made a mess, and he felt bad about it, but he didn't want to go bothering them every time he needed something to eat. He figured as long as he didn't make any more messes, it would be fine.

After he swallowed the first ball, his throat felt a little funny. He swallowed a few times and coughed a little. But then he felt fine. He was still hungry though. Maybe one gumball wasn't enough. He chose another one, a pretty yellow one with blue swirls in it. He put it in his mouth. He sucked on that one, too, but nothing happened, so he eventually just swallowed it the way he'd swallowed the first one. He was about halfway through the small bag when Nicole, Lori, and Josh came into the living room.

"Kyle, what are you doing?" Lori asked as Kyle gulped and coughed.

Nicole stared at the bag in his hands. "Kyle…you didn't…you didn't _eat_ those, did you?!" She looked alarmed

"Yesh", he said with his mouth full of another one.

"Mom!" Josh yelled. "Mom, those are mine!"

"Kyle, don't eat any more of those! Don't swallow! Spit that out and give them to me!"

Kyle, bewildered, spit out his "gumball" and held it out for Nicole, who took it, despite it being covered in spit. Lori took the rest of the bag from him.

Lori looked grossed out but also like she was going to burst out laughing, Nicole looked worried, and Josh looked mad- and disgusted.

"Mom! He _ate_ them! I won all those on the playground when I was a kid, I was the best player in the neighborhood, and- and – he just _ate_ them!" Josh sputtered.

"Mom, what are we going to do?" Lori asked, trying to keep from laughing.

"Kyle, how many of these did you eat?" Nicole looked like she might be sick.

"Mmmm…four or five?" Kyle answered, wondering what the problem was.

"Oh, my lord." Nicole said. "Okay, Lori, you watch Kyle- I'm going to go call the doctor."

Once Nicole left the room, with Josh following her grumbling, Lori let loose with laughter. Kyle wanted to know what he had done wrong, but he couldn't get an answer from her. In fact, he found her actions so funny that he, too, began laughing uncontrollably.

When Nicole and Josh came back in, Lori and Kyle straightened up.

Nicole said, "The doctor said most likely it won't be a problem…we'll just have to wait for the marbles to pass out of his system."

At this, Lori started laughing again. Kyle had no idea what was going on, but he started laughing too. Pretty soon even Nicole had to join in.

Josh, on the other hand, was not happy. "My prize-winning marbles are working their way through Kyle's intestines! And once they're out…there's _no way_ I'm keeping them!"

THE END

Ps….I don't know if kids actually shoot marbles anymore…but this is a story, so that's all right.


End file.
